A Rogue Trip
by Kayka
Summary: Rogue is all set to take the road trip she has always dreamed of, until she crashes into a handsome stranger. Literally. Rogan. AU. One-shot.
**Disclaimer:** I maintain that I could do no worse than Fox, but apparently, such an argument does nothing to confer ownership. Rats. Foiled again.

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 **A Rogue Trip**

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Rogue screamed, stomping on her brakes.

The motorcycle had swerved out of the way of the much larger vehicle in front of her, and instead slammed head-on into her jeep.

The semi she'd been stuck behind barreled on down the snowy road, the driver unknowing or uncaring of the havoc wreaked by his momentary slide into the other lane.

Marie fought down the airbag. Finding her self bruised and scraped, but otherwise unhurt, she took in the gore on her hood through the shattered glass of her windshield. She cursed.

She didn't even know the Canadian emergency numbers. Even if she could figure them out and get her phone to work, it would probably take them _hours_ to get out here.

She doubted her new friend would last that long, if he was even still alive.

The idiot apparently didn't believe in wearing a helmet.

The sickening, twisted feeling of dread quickly turned to astonishment as Rogue watched the man groan and push himself up and off the twisted frame. He stumbled several yards away from the wreckage.

She swallowed past the shock and jimmied her door open.

"Hey! Mister, you ok?"

"M'm fine," the man slurred, cradling his head and listing to the right.

 _She_ didn't have medical training, but Jean did. And his bones should have been _shattered_ , not to mention the mess that should have been made of his internal organs. And yet here he was- up, and semi-alert which meant-

"Hey, listen. I'm gonna call someone."

He looked up at her then, and she could see a silvery _metal_ where skin and muscle had been scraped away from his forehead. She thought it might be a metal plate, but the same material gleamed through a wound to his clavicle.

 _This guy has a metal skeleton._

His delirious eyes caught hers.

"No. No hospital. No cops."

"I was just-"

"Look lady, I'm fine," he reaffirmed, seeming more coherent by the moment.

She watched as the nasty gash above his eye sealed itself, confirming her suspicions. No one could have survived a crash like that and been up moments later unless they had a very lucky mutation.

The man had a cagey look about him; he'd realized that she knew what he was and didn't trust her one lick because of it.

Well, that suited her fine.

"You should really wear a helmet, y'know."

The man looked at her like she had a screw loose, which she _did_ , but _he_ didn't know that.

"So, that next time you bounce off the hood of someone's car, it's at least plausible you'd survive. "

Marie jerked her phone out of her bedraggled purse only to find it had been smashed.

Sighing, she let the broken device drop back into her bag with a plunk.

Idiot with a death wish or not, she agreed with the man that in this instance the cops were a 'no go.'

Dealing with the authorities wasn't safe for people like them. There would be a whole lot of explaining, and in rural places like this, especially, disclosing mutant status was a crapshoot.

She rummaged around some more; it had to be in there… _Oh, right. Pocket_.

"Lady. I said-"

Rogue held up a hand to cut him off. The man rumbled at her. It nearly sounded like a growl.

"I heard you the first time, tough guy. I ain't callin' the cops, no how. We need a pick up."

"A wrecker?" The man guessed, glancing ruefully at the twisted hunk of metal that had once been his motorcycle.

Rogue pulled her X-communicator out of her jacket. Finding it undamaged, she smiled.

"Better. And I still think you need to see a doctor."

"I-"

"Just hear me out. She's a mutant like you and me."

" _You're_ a mutant?"

His whole posture changed. He was still edgy as all get out, but some of the coiled tension had eased out of the set of his shoulders.

And she could have sworn he sniffed at her. Looking up at him, she found a pair of gold irises staring back before they quickly faded back to hazel. It'd be just her luck to find a feral super-healer with complimentary super senses.

 _Yeah, definitely no cops._

"That little thing o' yours actually get service out here?" He asked, as if he wasn't Mister Magic Eyes.

Rogue smiled cheekily at his dubious reference to her com.

"Sugar, I always have service."

She pressed the little button in the center, the hum and discrete beep confirming her connection.

"Scott? Professor? You there? I need some hel-"

The man's face twisted oddly. Rogue found herself shoved to the ground, her communicator flying off somewhere as she lost her grip.

"What the!"

Before she could complain about being pinned under the man's bulk, a boom sounded from the direction of her jeep and a wave of heat burst over them. She coughed as the wind carried acrid, gray smoke over to where she and her companion had landed.

The man looked her over, assessing her for injury.

"You okay, kid?"

Rogue nodded numbly. He slid himself off of her, and held out a hand to help her up. She hesitated only an instant before taking it.

If her loyal rust bucket hadn't been totaled before, it definitely was now. Looked like Scott would get his way, after all, when she got back.

"Do you see my communicator anywhere?"

The man pointed to a tree several feet away.

She picked up the little metal device. It looked okay for the most part. Slightly banged up, but hey, join the club.

She fiddled with it for five solid minutes, but it wouldn't connect. Not even any static.

"Damn," she muttered.

Phone down. Com down. And stranded with a strange, attractive beardy fellow in the middle of nowhere Canada with sundown a couple of hours away. Just her luck.

Okay, Rogue, not the worst spot you've ever been in.

 _Maybe not the worst, but probably the coldest. And getting colder by the minute_.

"What are the chances that your friends heard any of that?"

"I don't know if they got my call at all," Marie admitted, "At best they did, and it'll be a few hours. At worst… they're not coming."

The man nodded, as if that was what he had expected her to say.

They couldn't stay here- that was a given. And god only knew where they should head. She had passed a small town an hour or so ago, but who knew how long it would take them to make that on foot.

"C'mon. We gotta hike ahead of us."

Her companion headed off toward the forest.

"Shouldn't we stay near the road?" Rogue called after him.

There was always the chance of a passing motorist, though this probably wasn't the most well-traveled of highways this time of year, but surely sooner or later somebody would pass by.

"It curves up ahead. There's a town ten miles north-west, by the compass. Road's twice that."

Rogue worried her lip. Stay with the nice safe inferno and play damsel in distress, or follow the guy who seemed to know where he was going into the dark scary forest and save herself?

She could always down the guy, if need be.

"You can wait here if you want lady, but I ain't waitin' for a chance passerby that's gonna ask a whole lotta pointed questions."

"Damn."

Mr. Biker-dude was right, so she set to following the man who was already striding away into the woods. He slowed to allow her to catch up once he noted her decision.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. But the cold was wicked, and the wind was biting, even through the trees. Rogue had to take her mind off of it, or she'd go crazy thinking about it.

"You gotta name, mountain man? I'm Rogue."

He didn't alter his pace but his face turned toward hers, as he cocked an eyebrow.

" _Rogue_? What kinda name is Rogue?"

"Mine."

He did an odd little half shrug and continued on his path without offering his own name.

The walked on in silence for another moment before Rogue piped up again.

"Y'know, it's customary, to tell someone your own name when they introduce themself."

"I'll do that just as soon as you do."

What an ass! Here she was being the epitome of Southern etiquette, and what did she get for her efforts?

 _Fine._ He'd got as much as she was going to give him on that front.

She fumed for another few minutes, but soon all she could think of was huddling into her coat and putting one foot in front of the other.

Rogue and Captain Canada, as she'd dubbed him in her head, had been walking _forever_ , and the waning sunlight had slipped beyond the horizon ages ago.

She drew her jacket tighter to ward off the biting wind.

"Stop," the man ordered as Rogue bumped into his outstretched arm.

"S'Cuse you?" Rogue grumbled.

"We need to. Wind's getting worse and the snow's not far off. You'll freeze before we get there."

Her glare must have been mutinous because the man chuckled.

"Fine. Maybe I'm the one that's gonna freeze, but first things first we need shelter."

Rogue huffed out an exhale of breath through her nose and immediately regretted the sting of it.

"There's a good enough spot up ahead. We'll be sheltered as long as the wind doesn't change course."

Her face was numb, and she must have stumbled one too many times because suddenly, Rogue found herself literally swept off her feet.

"Put me _down_ ," she groused.

He grunted, but didn't do as bid.

"You're _not_ carrying me," Rogue warned.

"Seems to me I am."

She was going to complain more, she really was, but Rogue didn't much feel like fighting him. He was warm and sturdy, and After the day she'd had, Marie was pooped.

 _Dear Lord, in Heaven, I've found the real life Brawny Paper Towel Man._

Inane little thoughts like that just proved her point.

"We're gonna make it over this ridge, and then we'll stop for the night."

Rogue mm'ed her agreement. She didn't relish being a Rogue-cicle over night, but it looked like she'd have to be. With the onset of snow to accompany the driving wind, they wouldn't be walking much further tonight, regardless.

She saw his intended destination as they crested the ridge. The descent wasn't an easy one, and it took longer than she would have liked. She ended up hopping down to free up the man's hands as he guided them both to relative safety.

It was barely more than a crevice, but it got them both out of the elements, more or less. Even if she did have to stay glued to his lap to accomplish that.

 _What a hardship that'll be._

She'd intended to warn him off, as she felt him nuzzling into the fall of her hair –she didn't know if her control would hold well with exhaustion. But her tiredness and the odd comfort provided by her makeshift human bed won out. Rogue fell into an easy sleep.

Some time later with dawn still far, far away, Marie woke. Her nose felt like it was about to fall off due to the cold. That was what woke her, she decided. She turned and burrowed into the warmth behind her.

Something hard and far, far from cold bumped against her hip during her jostling to get comfortable. Then again, her own personal space heater was hard all over.

"You keep squirming, and we're going to have a problem," the man growled into her ear.

She woke up a bit more at that. _Oh right. Middle of nowhere in a snowstorm with Captain Canada._

"Sorry." Rogue flushed.

"You keep smelling like that, though, it might not be a problem after all."

 _Oh, damn_. He was flirting with her. She didn't even know his name, and despite every trashy story she had read to the contrary, this little adventure was _so_ _not_ going there.

The man lowered his head to the juncture of her neck and sucked gently before moving up to nip at her earlobe.

Oh, wait, no, it totally _was_ going there.

Marie shivered in a way that had nothing at all to do with the cold.

She was prevented from analyzing that revelation further when the man tensed and drew away.

Ok, _that_ shiver was definitely from the anti-warmth of their environment on her newly dampened skin.

She was prepared to give the man and whatever had distracted him the what-for, until she caught the look of concentration on his face. He'd canted his head as if he were listening for something.

"What is it?" Rogue whispered, slipping instantly into mission mode.

She didn't hear anything, and she wasn't sure how he could either. But maybe there was something to that 'super-sense' speculation she'd entertained earlier.

"Plane. Small one."

This was far from the weather for a conventional airplane, and at this time of night-

"The Blackbird!" Rogue exclaimed.

They must have gotten her distress call before she'd been cut off. Knowing she was in trouble, the Professor could have tracked her with Cerebro. Marie didn't know whether to curse or praise their timing.

"Friends of yours then, darlin'?"

"Yes," Rogue affirmed before crawling inelegantly off the man's lap. _Compartmentalize. Compartmentalize. Compartmentalize._ They stood together, as Rogue mentally picked out their path down to the valley below.

"Ain't much for flyin'." Her companion groused as they watched the small aircraft land.

"Bet'chya ain't much for trekking five miles through rocky terrain in a blizzard, neither."

The man cocked a brow. "I'll take that bet."

Rogue grinned.

"This ain't the time for your machismo, cowboy. Let's just get down there. We'll take you wherever you want to go. Or…"

The invitation nearly spilled from her mouth before she could stop herself. She didn't know this man from Adam. But she had a _feeling_ and after an instant's hesitation, she continued.

"You could always come with us."

The man's eyes flitted to hers before they focused back on the jet and the team spilling forth to rescue them.

"I'll think about it."

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 **A/N:** There _is_ a planned sequel to this, though, I'm not sure when I will have it finished. Next up on my planned writing schedule is a short-ish Victor/Marie post-DoFP series.


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